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WASHINGTON — The White House and federal officials are coming to the rescue of the lowly
honeybee, pumping money and extra resources in an attempt to avert continued, major losses among
the nation’s buzzing pollinators.

Citing population declines in the insects that help sustain many of the nation’s crops, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture announced on Friday conservation incentives for farmers and ranchers in
five states — Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin — who establish new
habitats for declining honeybee populations.

“American agricultural production relies on having a healthy honeybee population,” USDA
Secretary Tom Vilsack said in announcing the program.

The department says that more than $15 billion worth of agricultural products depend on bees for
pollination. In California, for example, almonds are almost exclusively pollinated by honeybees,
and the state’s industry, which is responsible for 80 percent of global almond production, requires
the pollination services of about

1.4 million beehives annually.

But the population of those insects has plummeted in recent decades. The number of managed
honeybee colonies in the United States has declined from 6 million beehives in 1947 to 2.5 million.
Since 2006, commercial beekeepers have seen honeybee colony losses over the winter months that are
far higher than historic rates.

The reasons, however, are something of a mystery.

According to federal officials, it’s due in part to the loss of natural forage, mite
infestations and diseases, and exposure to certain pesticides. What’s known as “colony-collapse
disorder” results in a rapid, unexpected and catastrophic loss of bees in a hive.

According to the Department of Agriculture, honeybees are not native to the continent but came
with European settlers. The losses of recent years are worrisome, but similar events have occurred
before.

At the turn of the previous century in a region of Utah, for example, 2,000 colonies were lost
to an unknown “disappearing disease” after a “hard winter and a cold spring,” according to the
department. In the mid-1990s, Pennsylvania beekeepers lost 53 percent of their colonies without a
specific identifiable cause.

To help avert continued declines, the White House and the USDA also established a “Pollinator
Health Task Force,” led by Agriculture Department and Environmental Protection Agency officials.
The group is to research the problem and within six months develop a “National Pollinator Health
Strategy.”

The other steps announced by the department include a beefed-up conservation program that allows
for managing or replacing existing vegetation to provide honeybees more blooms from which to
collect nectar and pollen.